USA weighs preemptive Nuclear strike
 

LA Times - 25th Jan:
U.S. Weighs Tactical Nuclear Strike on Iraq.
By Paul Richter, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- As the Pentagon continues a highly visible buildup of troops and weapons in the Persian Gulf, it is also quietly preparing for the possible use of nuclear weapons in a war against Iraq, according to a report by a defense analyst.

Although they consider such a strike unlikely, military planners have been actively studying lists of potential targets and considering options, including the possible use of so-called bunker-buster nuclear weapons against deeply buried military targets, says analyst William M. Arkin, who writes a regular column on defense matters for The Times.

Military officials have been focusing their planning on the use of tactical nuclear arms in retaliation for a strike by the Iraqis with chemical or biological weapons, or to preempt one, Arkin says. His report, based on interviews and a review of official documents, appears in a column that will be published in The Times on Sunday.

Administration officials believe that in some circumstances, nuclear arms may offer the only way to destroy deeply buried targets that may contain unconventional weapons that could kill thousands............

.....In the last year, Bush administration officials have repeatedly made clear that they want to be better prepared to consider the nuclear option against the threat of "weapons of mass destruction" in the hands of terrorists and rogue nations. The current planning, as reported by Arkin, offers a concrete example of their determination to follow through on this pledge.

Arkin also says that the Pentagon has changed the bureaucratic oversight of nuclear weapons so that they are no longer treated as a special category of arms but are grouped with conventional military options.

A White House spokesman declined to comment Friday on Arkin's report, except to say that "the United States reserves the right to defend itself and its allies by whatever means necessary"....................

LA Times

I don't believe that even Dubya would be silly enough to try that one. At least, I sincerely hope not.

Consider the possible consequences. If the US were to prove beyond doubt that it was willing to nuke first, where would that leave such nuclear nations as may have cause to feel that America was potentially their enemy also? What options would be open to them? Sit and wait for it to happen to them as well?

Maybe the threat of mutual annihilation (spelling?) would be enough to avoid global escalation with the likes of China, though maybe not; and Russia probably doesn't see the US as a genuine enemy anymore.

But what of the wild cards?

I guess my real concern is summed up in this excerpt from an email to a friend on a related subject:

"NK already has nukes. Iraq doesn't. NK is building more of them; Iraq can't
at this point in time.
NK has submarines, and quite a few of them at that. Iraq doesn't, to the
best of my knowledge.
NK has advanced long range missile technology, and quite a bit of it. Iraq
doesn't, really.

NK almost certainly has both ballistic and cruise missiles, certainly
ballistic, nuclear-equipped, on some of its subs right now. These can
certainly threaten the US west coast, possibly the east coast, and who
knows, maybe the Gulf of Mexico coast as well.

The USN and USAF can certainly find and destroy some, many, even most of
these vessels, before their threat can be realised. But they can't
absolutley guarantee to be able to find them all.

If three or four NK subs managed to get past US defences, which is quite
feasible, and they launched one or two nukes each at major US coastal
cities, which is not excessive, and half of those nukes went off, which is
conservative, and even if the size of the nukes were as small as Hiroshima,
what would the effect on the US be?

Medically it would be unable to cope, period. The most likely target states,
all coastal, would include California, Texas, Florida and New York; in other
words, where most of the US population lives. When the really big states are
hit, how much out-of-state assistance is there available to be called upon?
Probably far too little.

Economically, politically, militarily, how could the US respond, and what
state would it be in afterwards?

Assuming that a counterstrike is possible in a post nuclear EMP environment,
NK would no longer exist; that much is a given. But would the US continue to
exist, and as a world superpower?

Is NK silly enough to do this thing? Already backed into a corner as they
are, if pushed any further, the answer is probably yes.

Is the US prepared or even able to countenance the probable consequences of
such a realistically possible scenario? I would say no, and that, in my
opinion, is why they are treading so carefully around NK. Iraq is a
completely different animal; it isn't capable of hitting back, and is
probably sensible enough to not do that even if it were."

I do hope Dubya isn't that silly.

I think that simple geography rules out a nuclear strike on North Korea. It is, after all, sandwiched between China, which is nuclear armed and unlikely to be too happy about a nuke in its backyard, and South Korea, an ally. And just over the way is Japan.

Given that Dubya has already threatened Iraqi commanders with 'War Crimes' indictments if they use any WMD against US troops, any threat to use US WMD must put him on very dodgy moral ground...

... so I guess maybe we should take the prospect seriously.

In Gulf War 1 President Bush 1 said that he'd send Iraq back to the pre-industrial age in a manner that would take the country centuries to recover if they used WMD against the allies, I guess now they're just being blunt about how they'd do that.

If the tactical nukes are capable of going in so deep and sealing the explosion up after them would we ever know they'd been used?

Hmm...I think this comes down to whether you believe a) that Don Rumsfeld's funky bunky busters will work without destroying all Baghdad and 12 million Civpop (which I don't for a minute) and b) that Iraqi military targets exist which are both worth a nuclear strike and more importantly c) cannot be destroyed/neutralised by conventional or political means with less needless destruction and political blowback. We can't assume that a "bunker buster" will be any less horrific than an ordinary tacnuke - so the assumption has to be that any strike will be as bad as one fears. Therefore I don't think that a pre-emptive use of a nuclear weapon in Iraq could be justified, as we can expect to dominate the conventional battle. As in the original war, the only purpose for them would be deterrence of the use of WMD by the other side.

Why not if it can be done with a minimum of casualties. Israel did this 20 years ago.

.............................where?

What are you talking about Bubbette?

Maybe I didn't read the thread right--if you were talking about preemptive strikes, I was talking about when Israel bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in, I think 1981--oops now I see you meant *using* nuclear weapons! Sorry.

LA Times: The Nuclear Option in Iraq

By William M. Arkin.

WASHINGTON -- One year after President Bush labeled Iraq, Iran and North Korea the "axis of evil," the United States is thinking about the unthinkable: It is preparing for the possible use of nuclear weapons against Iraq.

At the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) in Omaha and inside planning cells of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, target lists are being scrutinized, options are being pondered and procedures are being tested to give nuclear armaments a role in the new U.S. doctrine of "preemption."..........................

Nuclear weapons have, since they were first created, been part of the arsenal discussed by war planners. But the Bush administration's decision to actively plan for possible preemptive use of such weapons, especially as so-called bunker busters, against Iraq represents a significant lowering of the nuclear threshold. It rewrites the ground rules of nuclear combat in the name of fighting terrorism.

It also moves nuclear weapons out of their long-established special category and lumps them in with all the other military options -- from psychological warfare, covert operations and Special Forces to air power in all its other forms...............

Entrusting major policy reviews to tightly controlled, secret organizations inside the Pentagon is a hallmark of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's tenure. Doing so streamlines decision-making and encourages new thinking, advocates say.

But it also bypasses dissenters, many of whom are those in the armed services with the most knowledge and the deepest experience with the issues. The Bush inner circle is known to be a tight bunch, prone to "group think" about Iraq and uninterested in having its assumptions challenged. But there are opinions they need to hear. While most military officers seem to consider the likelihood of our using nuclear weapons in Iraq to be low, they worry about the increased importance placed on them and about the contradictions inherent in contemplating the use of nuclear weapons for the purpose of eliminating weapons of mass destruction..........

In May, Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 17, officially confirming the doctrine of preemptively thwarting any potential use of weapons of mass destruction.......

How great a change these steps represent are revealed in the fact that STRATCOM owes its existence to previous post-Cold War policymakers who considered it vital to erect a great firewall between nuclear and conventional forces.

Now, with almost no discussion inside the Pentagon or in public, Rumsfeld and the Bush White House are tearing that firewall down. Instead of separating nuclear and conventional weapons, Rumsfeld is merging them in one command structure........

The review called upon the military to develop "deliberate pre-planned and practiced missions" to attack WMD facilities, even if an enemy did not use nuclear weapons first against the United States or its allies.

According to STRATCOM documents and briefings, its newly created Theater Planning Activity has now taken on all aspects of assessing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons facilities worldwide. Planners have focused intelligence gathering and analysis on seven priority target nations (the "axis of evil" nations along with Syria, Libya, China and Russia) and have completed a detailed analysis of intelligence data available on all suspect sites. According to U.S. Central Command sources, a "Theater Nuclear Planning Document" for Iraq has been prepared for the administration and Central Command.

What worries many senior officials in the armed forces is not that the United States has a vast array of weapons or contingency plans for using them. The danger is that nuclear weapons -- locked away in a Pandora's box for more than half a century -- are being taken out of that lockbox and put on the shelf with everything else. While Pentagon leaders insist that does not mean they take nuclear weapons lightly, critics fear that removing the firewall and adding nuclear weapons to the normal option ladder makes their use more likely -- especially under a policy of preemption that says Washington alone will decide when to strike.

To make such a doctrine encompass nuclear weapons is to embrace a view that, sooner or later, will spread beyond the moral capitals of Washington and London to New Delhi and Islamabad, to Pyongyang and Baghdad, Beijing, Tel Aviv and to every nuclear nation of the future.

If that happens, the world will have become infinitely more dangerous than it was two years ago, when George W. Bush took the presidential oath of office.

Pre-emptive use of tactical nukes
 

The LA Times article is total nonsense ; the command authority/policy may be being revised, but this is pure rabble-rousing from some of the creatures in La-la land.
It makes good copy and can be defended under ' the public's right to know'. It's also grist to the mill for the folks who have such a visceral dislike of the US in general, and George W. in particular (crazy Texans, the Bush 'junta', hang'em high etc.).
If it happens, the war with Iraq will be conventional, irrespective of what Saddam does. However, the US and allies (if any) may incur more casualties by employing conventional means.

Nuke Bunker Busters
 

While the weapon itself may be able to penetrate a substantial distance before detonating and then sealing itself in there is still the issue that the weapons residue will begin to leach into the ground water. That will of course include all the "nasty" radioactive materials like plutonium, U235/8, Strontium 90 etc.

There is also the risk that one of these beauties might not go off on impact. In which case it could be salvaged and employed elsewhere. (Whoops I just pinched one of Mr Clancy's plots!)

Besides which similar results can be achieved by letting Saddam chuck scuds at Israel. I am sure Mr Sharon will be only to happy to oblige.

Unfortunately the present range of US nuclear bombs cannot penetrate to sufficient depth to prevent the fireball breaching the surface. A burst might well destroy all possible biological or chemical contaminants - but there will still be a surface burst and fall out.

One hopes it's just deliberate psychological warfare to deter their use by the Iraqi high command. But, as with the previous statement about the "Axis of Evil" and Korea, it may have a far more profound effect on nations other than those at which it was aimed........

It's certainly frightening and disproportionate enough to lead many people to regard Bush as being even more imbalanced and insane.

Orac -

On the subject of special weapon penetration: although today's known weapons (e.g. B61-11) probably can't penetrate deep enough to avoid the blast venting into the atmosphere, one suspects planners would propose a variation on the current 'double-whammy' approach used by Paveways against HAS and the like, in which the first weapon 'opens the door' for the second. Use of a deep penetration weapon like the GBU-28 (or the high-speed penetrating weapons now in development) would probably go some way towards achieving this.

From a broader perspective, this question of the use of low-yield weapons has been an active topic of discussion within the services over the past decade. This by itself is a fairly fundamental shift (at least in the public realm), and indicates a sense of greater freedom to at least consider the issue now that the days of MAD are - by and large - over.

But wait--we've got this new microwave bomb!
The Pentagon says its latest deadly gadget - a precision-guided lightning bolt of microwave power - would be its most important weapon in a war with Iraq.
The high-power microwave, a k a HPM, has been under development for years in the black-operations programs at the National Laboratories and the Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.

Also known as the "E-bomb," the HPM is designed to zap electronics, scramble computer programs and fry communications links.

http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/67521.htm

So basically it gets NTL to take over all their comms contracts?

Dont know why the sneeky beaky people spent years and millions developing the HPM. Bill Gates was able to do the same thing with Windows 2000 for a mere fraction of the cost!

Seriously now, there is no way that the US would use Nuclear Weapons in a pre-emptive strike. The most likely cause of a nuclear weapon being used in the region is if Iraq were to attack Isreal with a chemical/biological weapon, then as stated before, Isreal may retaliate.

I remember on a TV programme a few weeks ago it was alleged (or revealed I cannot remember which) that during Gulf War 1 the allies had battlefield nuclear weapons in theatre. Had Saddam used his WMD allies would have retaliated with a nuclear strike.

Off course there have been rumours that Gulf War syndrome was caused by the release of a chemical or biological weapon, either deliberately or inadvertently.

EMP weapons
 

These have been discussed for years.

Back in the bad old days the Sov's had regiments of SS18's with 25 MT warheads to zap western comms and electronic systems. The USA may well have had some weapons intended for similar purposes.

What is a relatively recent development is the creation of conventional EMP weapons. These were (allegedly) available at the time of GW1 but not used as the US felt confident that they could crack the Iraqi C3I system open without revealing the actual weapon to public exposure. I saw an article about this in JDW around 93(?). The Sov's (as was) were also supposed to have these things also.

There are also a number of softkill systems in the US armory - in GW 1 they used Tomahawk to deploy spools of carbon fibre over poser stations - they trailed over the transformers and cables and shoerted out the civilian power supply. No doubt they will have some new tricks to add bring to the party this time.

I suspect the C130 thing may be misdirection though it would have to be very well shielded to prevent the aircraft wiping out its own avionics. Perhaps the crews of these C130's will be easily identified by the fact they will all have clockwork watches, as the digital ones they used to have had all melted.